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Sunday, October 5, 2008

Photos: Soulard Oktoberfest, St. Louis, 10/3/08

The Soulard Oktoberfest, held over the weekend at the Soulard Market at 8th and Lafayette Street, attracted a couple thousand people, mostly college kids who could be seen stumbling around Soulard at the end of the night with an empty plastic beer stein in one hand and a crumpled ATM receipt in the other.

Not everyone can handle their beer -- especially if it comes in the form of 32-ounce steins -- so there was plenty of barf on the streets, and at least one account of a petite 110-pound woman socking her 6' 3'' boyfriend in front of my apartment. The deftly landed punch apparently did the trick because the guy with the sculpted beard stopped yelling at her.

There were also the fist fights, plenty of people walking in the streets (pesky brick sidewalks offer too many dangerous cracks that can cause a fall?) and lots of crying from jilted lovers.

If you were sober in Soulard this weekend, you saw all forms of drunkeness in such high volume that you may have just wanted to get out of the neighborhood and head for dryer ground.

I don't mean to sound like a griper, because there was also great music, tasty food and plenty of people-watching to do this weekend. It's about 11:30 a.m. now, I think I just might head out and get my own beer stein...

On Friday night, photographer Steve Truesdell was at Oktoberfest documenting the fun with his camera. Check out our photo slide show of the festival.